


The Greatest Role

by orphan_account



Category: Castle
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 19:43:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Motherhood may not be the starring role she dreamed of, but Martha Rodgers is determined to make it her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Greatest Role

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Castleland. 
> 
> I thought I'd posted this months ago. Apparently not.

There is no dress rehearsal, just hours of agony followed by a cloudy euphoria when she finally holds her baby boy.  

 

She's had almost nine months to prepare for this.  She's performed entire Shakespeare plays with less to go on.  Yet she feels like an understudy, thrust onto the stage to play someone else's role at the last minute, without the time to learn what she's supposed to be doing.  

 

She's starred in plays and musicals, on and off Broadway, and has a long string of film and television credits.  Martha Rodgers doesn't do stage fright.  But this one woman show with the tiniest audience imaginable scares her more than she ever thought possible.  

 

As always, she doesn't let fear hold her back.  Martha embraces motherhood in her own way, critics be damned.  

 

Raising her child alone is rarely glamorous, sometimes thankless and often lonely.   

 

She doesn't play her part perfectly.  She fumbles her lines, shouting when she should soothe and coddling when she should chastise.  She misses her cues and mistimes her entrances, forgetting to collect him from school and abandoning him with inappropriate babysitters.  She gets her blocking wrong, standing too far away when he needs her protection but taking centre stage when it's his turn to shine.  

 

In some ways, he raises himself.  Sometimes, in an odd sort of role reversal, he raises her too.  But she loves him fiercely through the crazy whirlwind of his childhood.  Work and lovers come and go,  but he is her constant and she is his.  

 

She doesn't get accolades or glowing reviews, but his smiles and laughter and the messy handmade mother's day cards mean more to her than any acting award.  

 

Though she's far from perfect, motherhood is definitely the greatest role she's ever played.  


End file.
